1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of cooking appliances and, more particularly, to a data entry system enabling alpha-numeric inputs into an electronic control system of a cooking appliance.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The art of cooking is currently undergoing substantial change. It is no longer the norm to have a family member home all day with time to cook and prepare meals. Today, more and more consumers must rush home from work to prepare meals for themselves or for their families. In today's fast paced society, time is of the essence. The luxury of spending time in preparing a meal is becoming less and less affordable. As such, consumers demand an oven that will cook a meal in less time than conventional ovens, without sacrificing the quality of the prepared food. In order to meet these demands, manufacturers are combining conventional radiant cooking systems with the rapid cook advantages of convection, microwave, and other types of cooking systems.
Of course, when making a wide range of cooking options available to a consumer in a particular cooking appliance, the complexity of operation will certainly increase. To counteract this inherent situation, electronic control units are being made more sophisticated to aid a user in selecting desired operations. For instance, it has been heretofore proposed to provide a visual display which can convey programming and operational information to a user in alpha-numeric formats. With such an arrangement, the control unit can basically walk a user through a programming sequence and also convey a wide range of messages to the user. Given the level of technology employed in such advanced cooking systems, it is also possible for the user to customize, at least to a certain degree, the cooking appliance. For instance, it is possible to enable favorite recipes or cooking sequences to be saved in memory and reproduced when desired.
Regardless of the potential use of these advanced operation, programming and display functions, it must be kept in mind that cooking appliance has a relatively small amount of space available for a display and control elements. Certainly, the availability and consumer appeal of providing an abundance of information or control features can depend upon enhancing design features of the overall control system. For instance, the manner in which information is inputted and/or displayed to a user can have a significant effect on the overall consumer satisfaction and commercial viability of a cooking appliance, particularly a cooking appliance employing both conventional and rapid cook technologies.
Based on the above, there exists a need in the art for a versatile cooking appliance that is capable of providing a wide range of cooking operations, yet presents a compactly designed control arrangement that enables both the inputting and displaying of a wide range of alpha-numeric data for control and information purposes.